Do-It-Yourself Framed Canvas Project - From an Ordinary Photo

Last night was our monthly craft club meeting. Our lovely neighbor Tara hosted, and she taught us how to turn a regular photo into a framed work of art! As a professional photographer, Tara has a houseful of amazing photos that I thought were printed on canvas. One hanging in her hallway is stunning, and inspired this month's meeting!

I know its hard to see in photos, but when you walk up close and touch the surface, they have the delicate texture you find on a canvas. Last night, she let us all in on her secret. And now you can craft your own canvas look-alikes, too (for a fraction of the price I might add)!

Here's what you will need:
-A standard printed photo of any size (a great place to get prints at really reasonable prices is Costco)
-A frame
-A piece of foam board (you can buy this by the sheet at any craft store with a framing section)
-Mod Podge and foam brushes for applying
-A straight edge, cutting board and exacto knife (if you need to cut down your photo, or foam board)
-Sponges
-Rolling pin thingy
-Black and gold paint (optional)

2) First, find a photo you like and get it printed in the size you desire. 

Ever since a trip to Luckett's 2 years ago, I have wanted a huge piece of art with a white horse on it. They had a gorgeous framed arabian horse, and wow - I stared at this beauty. But the price tag was insane! I haven't forgotten that horse, so when this opportunity to make my own big piece of art came along, I hopped on a stock photography website to find my own white horse. I used Shutterstock. I was able to purchased and immediately download a "Super" high-resolution sized image (28.6" x 19.0" at 300 DPI) for only $19!! Once I downloaded the image from Shutterstock, I then uploaded it to the Costco photo center website. There I opted to printer a poster-sized photo in 30" x 20." This only cost $8.99! And it was ready in just a few hours!

3) Find a frame. Ideally, you want your frame to be the same size as your print. But, if your photo is bigger than the frame, you can always cut it down. Simply use a straight-edge or ruler, cutting board and exacto knife to get the size you need. Cut your foam board to the same size as your print.

Here's a tip - custom frames can be outrageously expensive (Trust me - the one I wanted for this project from Michael's was $400!) So, there's a few things you can do, buy a plain frame and paint it, which is what I did. Or, go to a place like HomeGoods, and score a clearance mirror and just remove the mirrored part. Instant frame!)

4) Once your print and foam board are cut to the correct size, gather your Mod Podge (we all used Matte, but Glossy is also available), a foam brush, and the rolling pin thingy. Liberally apply mod podge all over the foam board, creating a smooth layer. Cover the entire piece and make sure to get the edges. Here's Tara demonstrating!

5) Next, place your print over the foam board, and begin smoothing it out with the rolling pin thingy. Try to remove any and all air bubbles. Move in all directions. Once you have it smoothly in place, allow it to dry. This might take about 10 minutes - it dries rather quickly. At this point, we stopped to enjoy Tara's delicacies, which included homemade candied walnuts (to die for)!!

Isn't this a great photo? Another one of Tara's awesome shots!

6) After it dries, here comes the fun part...

Spread another liberal layer of mod podge right over the print. Work quickly, so it doesn't dry, because you immediately want to "stipple" the mod podge with a sponge. We used everyday dish sponges, that were split down the middle to reveal the bumpy texture inside. You can used other sponges, too - choose the size of the holes you prefer. Some sponges create larger stipple, while others create a smaller, finer stipple. We all opted for these dish sponges, which made larger stipple.

 Quickly dab the sponge on the wet mod podge. Dab the whole print, until you see the texture everywhere.

You dab fast, hence the speedy hand photo here!

When you are done, your entire print will look like this. Don't worry, the mod podge dries clear, and will only leave behind the texture - giving it the canvas look! We waited for it to dry, and then went back and did a second layer of the stippling.

Here's the white stippled mod podge on my horse.

After they dry, you simply insert your piece into the frame!

Here you can see the texture well in the top-left corner! Liza made this work of art!

She also made this one of her wedding bands on the beach - again you can really see the texture on the shaded areas in the bottom right.

Here's Tara's - isn't the frame awesome! It was originally a mirror!

Here's two Kelly did!

And Kim's shot from Hawaii!

Now that we've told you how this is done, let's talk about a few "special techniques," for aging your photos. Kristi worked on these two dog images as a special memento for her parents who just lost their beloved pets. Since her original photos were a bit blurry, she wanted to make them look old and "grainy," like a lot of old photos used to be back in the day. For the Photoshop users out there, you would called this adding "noise." To achieve this noise, Kristi added a tiny bit of black craft paint to her mod podge, stirred well, and then stippled. You can really see it well on the right-hand shot.  They turned out great!

In this photo Tara showed us how to age a piece two ways. She watered down a gold craft paint, and sponged it all over the image. You know how photos tend to turn yellow over the years - she made it happen instantaneously! Then she used watered-down black craft paint to create a silhouette around the edges. So cool!

Tara turned her kitchen into a serious studio for us with long tables covered in paper!

Here she is demonstrating the aging techniques!

Since my horse piece was so big, I needed help to get it smoothed out quickly and remove the air bubbles before the mod dried!

I LOVE how it turned out. I know its really hard to see the texture in my photos, especially on the white areas - but trust me, its there, and it feels so cool!

Remember how I said you could paint your frame? That's what I did here...finding a cool 20x30 frame or mirror was impossible. I could only find a plain black one. So, I dry-brushed a couple of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint colors over the black, and it changed the whole look. I can't wait to hang this in my home!

Thank you to Tara for all of her hospitality, and for teaching us how to make our own custom-canvases! I know I will be doing this again and again!

Open Framed Wall Decor - our April Craft Club project!

I love Craft Club! Why you ask? Two words: wine -and- friends. Craft club is like most other social clubs - there's food, alcoholic beverages and ladies shooting the shit. Craft club is no different than book club, bunco, even some mommy play groups I've been to. It's a group of gals meeting for a purpose that's really not the sole purpose for meeting. Does that make sense?

Sure, we craft. We make stuff with our hands. But, its much more than that. It's time away from the kids. Time away from the laundry, lunch-making and lists of to-do items around the house. It's time for ourselves. Time to be creative. Time to be an adult again. Most of the gals in my group have little kids, and we spend a great deal of time being something for everyone else. Nurse, chef, personal assistant, dog-walker, and boo-book kisser. At Craft Club, I free the inner me. And that me is Hot Pink!

So, after all that bla, bla, bla about the higher calling of Craft Club, let's get down to business and talk about the open frame wall decor we made!

Jackie hosted in her lovely home, and chose a project that was fun and easy to make. Michael's called this an Open Frame Monogram Wreath. You can read the instructions here. Here's what our group did!

We all personalized the project in different ways - some chose to add the silk flowers to their frame like in the Michael's version. Other's painted and hot glued wooden embellishments to frame. Some made flowers from paper. I thought the best part was checking out everyone's gorgeous papers they used to decoupage the wooden monograms. Today's scrapbook paper is just so beautiful! I swear, I am compelled to buy it up and save a stash - just to have it and look at it. It really wouldn't matter if I ever used it, I just love having it!

Our talented artist in the group, Gail, chose not to decoupage her initial, but instead hand-drew designs on it! Is it beautiful!

I loved the paper flowers on Laura's frame!

I opted to not do an intial. Instead I picked up a couple of wooden crosses. I decoupaged each and stacked them - topping the whole thing with a pretty cross I picked up at Hobby Lobby. I thought hot glue would hold this whole thing together, but it didn't work so well. I then decided to use screws through the back to keep them all snug. Here it is hanging on my wall!

I love the rustic, rough nature of the frame, combined with the delicate french toille paper.

Did I say how much I love craft club?

We Made No-Knit Scarves at Craft Club

This month our neighborhood craft club got together and made scarves. Except we didn't knit - we knotted. Intrigued? So was I.

Here's the project we based our craft from - Martha Stewart's No-Knit Scarf. So first, we went out and looked for some really chunky yarn.

Our neighbor, Lisa, led the craft, since she had done similar macramé knotting previously.

The next step was to cut 12 strands that were 108" in length. She said that would give us 9-feet, but that we'd lose about 1/3rd of it in the knotting and be left with a 6-foot scarf. So we all started cutting our 12 strands.

Chrissy, our hostess, used really amazingly soft and thick yarn! And she made delicious soup and sandwiches, too! (she's known in the neighborhood for her wonderful cooking!)

After the 12 strands were cut and ready to go, we had to secure them under the end of a clip board.

Then we separated them into 4 groups of 3 strands each.

The next step was to take the two groups of strands on the right and knot them as you would tie a shoe: overlap the two groups and then tuck the ends of one group through the loop (this sounds much more complicated than it really is - just pretend its a shoelace.)

Then do the same thing again, except this time, reverse the way you go into the loop. So, if the first time you tied you shoes you went over into the loop, this time go under. You are creating a square knot.

Repeat this on the left side with the two left groups of strands.

Now, take the two innermost groups of stands - and make the square knot by using the same technique explained above. Repeat the entire sequence, until you get to the end.

Lisa was really good at it.

Me, not so much.

Gail was a natural and finished quickly!

Somehow I ended up with about 8 inches of strands on one side and 3 on the other, so I had to stop and just cut the longer pieces off, which resulted in a smaller scarf then I had wanted. But, the scarf is warm and I love the color. I really enjoy Craft Club because it introduces us to crafts we may not have ever attempted otherwise. And its fun to get together with the ladies and enjoy food, drinks and girl time, while being creative.

Next month we are making pearl heart ornaments in honor of Valentine's Day - stay tuned!